Guild Wars 2

“South, grab wobbles and let’s go!” came a sharp bark from Ely.

It was met with an indignant cry and a grunt as the large charr pounced upon the trailing asura, and, hosting him by the most convenient handhold (his ears) slung him over her shoulder. As much as South hated playing “pack mule” for the little rat, they’d need him once they reached the fireside; truthfully, through his squeals and protests about “sensitive ears” combined with flailing arms and twirling legs, she knew he wasn’t a happy camper either.

It was Ralos, who broke into the center first. His hammer carrying the momentum of his weight at a dead sprint found its first victim; the burning logs of the bonfire. The scattered and threw light and shadows along with embers amongst the tents here. They were not taking chances and he remembered the nasty surprise of the Primordial Ember all too clearly.

Ely arrived shortly after South, her blades held tightly as a blur of leafy green rocked past them all with a sharp crackle of lightning. They all fell into position as the tide outside of the camp realized it’s mistake; barely visible at its center was the flashing of axes and the occasional stray arrow, or reptilian body squirming as it sailed none to majestically through the air. Brojm was still on his feet and holding a lot of attention even as the outliers doubled back towards their chieftain.

The chieftain raised no cry, only his gnarled staff as he unfurled and braced for the assault. His eyes under a hood of scales held no hate or recognition for the warriors that stood before him; they never would, and never did. A soft hiss was his greeting, though, it always was.

“Now!” Came the bellow of the mesmer as she turned to cleave into the first of the returning Forgotten.

Shard 7
~ String 5
“Once more,” The voice was haggard yet still resolute, “this time we strike from the south.”
The indigent reply followed as if almost on que, “We’ve already tried that you great oaf! I -”

“-swear, your historians must have taken more liberties with their childish scrawling than a Grawl…” She cut in and faded off.

The asura only had a handful of grating remarks and the whole group could now recite and finish them in their sleep. The glare he shot her was easily cowed by a smirk and a weary twirl of her sword.

Of course, they all knew that the short creature was right, but admitting it was always met by a long lecture about the importance of a culture or races ability to adapt a written language early on in its life span; or as Brojm put it, when “Tiny” was out of ear shot, “Asura gum mashing and flapping.”

“To be fair,” the low growl made all of them jump, “we had the most success that go, but perhaps this time we should try not to alert every guard in camp to our presence.” Her sour demeanor and the way her claws dug at the hilt of her daggers made it clear that her frustration was nearing a peak.

~String 6

Nightfall came upon the valley much like a scorned lover embraces its fellow. In the dusty tendrils of shadow the Six made their way through the yet lush side of the forest. They found that even the the Burn behind was unguarded, they were an easy target to pick from the ash and blackened stumps.

Brojm on point, the norns favorite place to be, was the first to arrive at the edge of the clearing. His bow in hand and axes at the ready he paused and counted, on his fingers, to allow the others time to move into position; numbers and math had never been his strong point, but Thalkk and Ely had given him the best “assumption” on the time it would take. Though he thought the little Asura a blowhard, Brojm respected and even liked Ely.

After he had gone through all of his fingers 3 times, he stepped into the clearing. His muscles taught like the string of his bow, this is what he lived for, “Oi!” He bellowed into the nights cold air, “Which of you dare to face the Blizzards Maw?!”

The ensuing explosion of sound and motion, recounted later as a landslide of scales and screams, were exactly what the rest of the group needed to rush the outpost unnoticed. The bonfire at its center, the target that glinted in each eye as the remaining 5 converged at the southern access.

Forward:

This is just a writing exercise or challenge I put upon myself. These will be things written in the short span of a few hours in a single night or day. If you would like to share thoughts or whatever feel free. Updates may be slow.

Anyway – here’s Shards of the Mists

Let’s see how it unfolds.

<3
~Swish~

great trait that sadly must compete with BI and CD and some other things in that slot.

If it were in almost any other line as a Master or Minor i would hazard a guess that we would see it in a ton of phantasm or PU or random builds, maybe even shatter.

lemme see if i can break down what you wanted from the OP..

1. Winds of Chaos (staff 1) but with less RNG more damage and an AoE

2. Guardians Hammer5 + Guardian/thief teleport utility skills all in one

3. Phantasmal Ele Comet (aoe + daze + vuln)

4. Same as 2 but minus a teleport and add another blast finisher and AoE

5. Please see Guardian Elite skill “Renewal of Focus”

…..

As “interesting” as the GS inversion from QCC to LDC is.. Hammer doesn’t need to follow suit. Mesmer’s have enough ranged as it is..

Hammer -

1. Basic Melee AA chain, probably apply weakness for 1 or 1.5s at the end.

2. Swing your hammer again – if you connect you teleport somewhere around your foe (nearby only)

3. Hammer swing or channel – Pulse an AoE dealing some damage and transfer condition(s) from yourself to foe’s struck.

4. Arbitrary Phantasm Summon – Maybe something that hits with Imob or a daze.

5. add a Leap or Retreat Skill here to open up a bit more movement to keep it in line with other mesmer weapons.

I think its fair that this is a further test of “How much of the ViP system can we break down and charge individually for Before the community has a serious issue with it?”

because “we worked hard for over a year on these (still very bugged and broken and silly as kitten) assets and we really want them in every version of the game guys” is a lovely cover statement…

you can safely assume that taking a break of any extended period of time is almost 1 for 1 on taking a break from Diablo 2 at this day an age.

sure someone might come out with a UI Mod or some silly weapon skins and you might forget how your skills all worked

but no matter when you left and returned the game itself has not changed. its the same quests with the same results with the same rng with the same bloated loot tables with the same classes doing the same things with the same skills and the same builds since release….

as for new classes.

if the turn around on comments and semi-promises or notes on development direction is any indication you can probably take another break or two before they announce a new class or even alternative ways to get precursors.

Bar Brawl is also probably more likely to be announced (again) before a new profession..

To be far all teaser images have the name of what I would guess is a ls chapter that we haven’t been given yet.

I challenge you to create a build that uses Imbued Diversion and have it make sense!

…

seriously, i tried last week and i want someone else to feel my pain T~T

sometimes i put it on my bar if i want to pretend i only have 2 utility skills…

but in honesty i’ve tried to make it work over and over in sPvP and vs Engies or boon guards its not bad…

it’s just not good either

i have all the same boons and get all the benefits but i don’t have their skills to re-spam them and i still dont gain the blocks and sustain they have ontop of them… they also still have all the boons..

While i rarely used the old mimic i’d take its weird and semi useless functionality over whomever-was-fired-after-this-went-live’s job…

at least i hope someone was fired

…..

or at least demoted..

Thaisa.3089:

Neptune.2570:

Mesmer is an amazing class and the potential with it is extreme at a high skill level.
It is however, possibly the least straightforward class in the game, is only optimal in ‘niche’ situations and requires extreme co-ordination and a team built around you to make it seriously effective at high lvl PvP.
It’s worth it, but if your looking for straightforward you may want to choose guard,war or ranger as swish said.

I have a level 80 ranger, and here is my issue with her, and perhaps this is my own personal fault with how this game is designed. I love archer classes. I leveled her to be mostly at range. What I feel have to do is be constantly in melee, which I did not expect and honestly frustrates me. I want to play her at range and shoot things. Perhaps I can look into those other two as well.

Thanks for feedback.

Ranger is a very wonky class as well especially when coming off of other MMO’s with archery based professions. and to be fair shines brightest at range with a longbow. however for Melee encounters a Sword and axe or dagger, while very weird to use at first, are almost a thief level of evading and hitting and annoyance to other classes.

Gs is the other popular choice i see out there and while it hits hard its a weapon that you need to be very careful with.

a LB/GS or Sword/X ranger can really mess people up from range and in close.

and as suggested, and sorry if i seemed very short about it, i was at work earlier, you can join OMFG and ask for help in learning things or just to play along side Mesmer’s in game modes.

you can also just create a toon and go to the HoTM lobby and dink around on the NPC enemies to see what feels best to you too.

Mesmer and the if both require investment and hours of learning and failing to function at a decent level in spvp. It’s not hundreds but it’s also based on the individuals ability to absorb retain and alter information to escalate your skill floor.

If you want to instantly roll up with little to no effort and still play competitively then I’d suggest guardian or warrior or ranger.

Specs are also very limited on the if and Mesmer we just happen to have one or two per game mode. No one spec really carries over into all three modes.

Can’t really argue sports but I can give you games.

Warrior is Farmville
Guardian is civilization
Ele is Tetris
Engine is statecraft
The if is cod
Mesmer is d&d
Ranger is angry birds
Necro is world of tanks

hate to chime in but anets already kinda stomped on the notion of “sexy cat people”

Charr males look mean and grizzled and cat like, and there was a well documented argument and report of the females design.

it boiled down to “we don’t want Cat girls with huge boobs, make them practical and in line with the males and the feel of the world. either they get no boobs or 6 boobs”

personally i think they went in a good direction no just making gnarled male creatures with “sexy” colored human girls as the female half of the race. I think Anet would likely stick to this when it comes to other non-human races that may become playable.

no worries on the mix up.

anyway there was another thread on this so thankfully i have the answer already.

Mesmers have two Leap finishers and 1 Blast finisher.

Phase Retreat , Swap (iLeap for the clone), and Torch 4.

The rules for getting them to count as finishers are a bit weird tho, its not like a guard or warrior.

Phase retreat – you must be standing in the Field (temporal curtain is a light field) when you use the skill for it to count as a Leap. Ending up in field after its use will not count.

i Leap – Only uses leap on the generated clone. The clone must spawn in a field in order to get the leap aka the field needs to be on the target. You will never get the leap from using this first half of the skill.

Swap – You must be standing in a Field when you use the skill in order to proc the Leap finisher (temporal curtain needs to be under your feet). a field at the enemy location will not grant you the leap finisher and swap will never grant your clone a leap finisher either.

Torch 4 is a blast finisher but only at the end of its duration (3 seconds i think) so you need to cast it and then stand on a field when it finishes to have it count as a blast finisher.

I can understand the confusion on Light aura / retaliation not happening as Sword 3 used to behave differently before the nerf/change to it.

hope that helps.

Cant decipher the first question..

but~

Retaliation requires that you Stand on the line and use a Leap or Blast finisher while there. It’ll then give you the newer Radiant Aura which grants retaliation when hit.

Also, that’s not haste, its swiftness. the two are completely different so be sure to double check before you post :P

while i’d say that your description of the issue is vague and about 20% over exaggerated..

This is an actual bug that i’ve been running into ever since the Queens Pavilion Reopened.

What happens - Spatial Surge is within range but never "connects" with the intended targets hit box. Results in no damage being done until use of a different skill or weapon or forced stow of weapon interrupts the AA spamming.

When does it Happen - Typically this is a PvE only issue as it occurs most often on world bosses or high HP foes that will be moving in and out of range (or moving a lot in general). I have seen it take place in sPvP a few times but its very rare and barely noticeable as you’re often using other skills to negate it (and damage numbers and effects fill your screen).

Why Does it Happen? This is a bit of a mystery to me, I’ve seen it happen most often when something or someone moves from in front of or in the LoS cone at the initial casting / channel. and then at some point during the same channel, moves out of or behind the LoS Cone.

I have also seen this happen with targets moving "out of range" while mid channel

But i’ve also seen it a few times on targets that just stood totally still and never left range or LoS, tho they may have evaded or gone invuln mid channel... i don’t remember very well.

Regardless, What it Causes - Spatial surge will cast as normal and the entire animation will play out. It will connect with foes in its path to the target but..

when it reaches its supposed target, spatial surge deals no damage (no damage numbers and the health bar is never reduced) and will not proc any sigil or trait or rune for "On Hit" or "On Crit"

Note: to Catch this bug you’ll need to run GS a lot and hammer on 1. Best results are probably... the Golem II world boss, Karka Queen, the Malformed Teragriff for LS, etc..

Please note that Targeting a new foe will also fix this bug..

to touch on the Gw1 story lines vs the Gw2 story lines.. and while the writting probably didnt improve or go down hill..

heres the biggest difference between Gw1 campaigns and Gw2 PS

Gw1 built its story from a small start to a big finish, there was very little extra fluff and you could expect call backs to earlier characters. It was all one very neat and ordly story from start to finish and fully self encompassing.

That NPC you saved in that first mission showed back up later on and remembered who you were and what you did and then helped you or whatever..

That NPC that died had a story behind him you learned about while doing your own thing… etc.. etc..

Gw2 PS involves a lot of player choices and gives us a bit more branching narrative that can ultimately only lead to one ending.

where it fails completely for me is where it ends up telling us 3 to 4 completely different stories and there is no accounting for past choices and they come off as disjointed.

For example. Human Noble – you deal with the queen and clearly know who she is. you then join an order and are told who the queen is and your character acts like this is entirely new news to them.

The most glaring oddity is that of the charr story. where in you find yourself with only one warband member left alive other than you and you struggle to create a new one. shortly there after this is rendered meaningless as you are shuffled off to join an order and must abandon your war band entirely like its not a big deal.

later on even the order you joined becomes pointless as you join the pact and any and all previous ties to any reoccurring characters are treated as “oh, we’ve never met before” even if you played along side or aided them earlier in your story.

The end result is that your choices and actions may have lead you to slay a dragon and save the world for a time but no one around you really seems to remember or care exactly who you are. you’re just a shadow that was there that went unnoticed.

it’s much less heroic when compared to the Gw1 campaign.

just a random thought on the Elder dragon Sleep to Awakening cycles and timings.

When creatures that hibernate retire to slumber in the real world, they must first consume vast amounts of food.

The less food eaten the more likely they are to Die or wake early.

Now according to some stuff in game the seer’s made the blood stone to drive the dragons back into sleep earlier than they probably naturally would. Thus being a bit hungrier than normal and without the release of magic some or a few might have just slept forever and died.

Regardless of that, if we consider that the weakest dragons of the previous cycle awake first the next cycle, and the dragons who consumed the most magic awaken later.

Would it stand to reason that last time around Moredremoth was the strongest dragon of the group? With Primordus being the weakest respectively.

Or would the Bloodstone in Maguuma have slowed Mord’s awakening and would Klakt have been the mightiest dragon?

Judging that no other dragons slumbered near one of these stones (as far as we know) I cant really make up my mind.. Which dragon ate the most stuff last cycle?

i’d guess maguuma spiders, those things were everywhere in Gw1 down there..

mostly because anet doesnt seem to add more than 1 new enemy model a year

First year was Karka

this year was Dust mites.

also because anet loves to reskin spiders for some reason..

Risen Spiders
Cave Spiders
Frost Spiders
Ghostly Spiders
Forest Spiders
Plains Spiders
Spider Spiders
Plastic Spiders
Ghostly Plastic Spiders
Spider gumbo
Spider Salad
Spider Soup
Spider Ice Cream..

Lt. Dan would be proud..

Xaylin.1860:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Chaos you and I have some unfinished dueling business.

Also, I like Pyros trait suggestion the best. The best way to deal with DE is to add more alternative forms of clone production, IMO. DE wouldn’t be so dominant if other trait lines offered a way to produce clones more rapidly.

Imagine if Wastrels Punishment spawned a clone on the enemy per interrupt. Suddenly lockdown Mesmer could go 6/2/6 or 6/2/0/0/6 without feeling screwed over.

Meeeeeh. Got to disagree.

Pyros suggestion sounds great at first glance. I see some issues, though. (Don’t slap me!)

• How does it work with Mirror Image?
• How does it work with Sc#1? (Hrhr)
• How is it balanced across all weapons? X/Sw would poop out Clones en masse.
• Most Clone generating skills already grant a very sufficient amount of utility.
• Most importantly: It doesn’t really fix the core issue.

For me personally, the real flaw/issue at hand is the insufficient baseline Clone generation of Mesmers. The baseline Clone generation has to be improved regardless of weapon choice or traits. This can only truly be achieved by making DE an innate class mechanic. Adding a new trait would probably add at least some build diversity. But at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter if you’re stuck with trait a) or trait b) if all builds require at least one of them anyway.

On the on interrupt idea: While creative most certainly hard to balance without a cooldown. It also bears the issue of not actually spawning Clones at the time you need them or overwriting existing ones when you don’t want to. Honestly, I would be pretty stressed if I had to micromanage my interrupts based on my Clones. It might even be counterproductive to the whole playstyle.

and I’ll point out again that this is where this conversation always ends up.

Clones out the kitten

or should we ditch clones as a mechanic?

Too many clones all the time from too many sources would then require nerfs to other things to support it in the world of “balance”. Honestly i think anet would go for the balls first and take a huge chunk out of the Players base damage to compensate for always having the ability to shatter and have cover..

If we take away DE and don’t replace it with anything then why not just redo the class, we won’t have enough reliable or quick ways to get clones out…

anyway, I’ll go ahead and restate that I think DE (current) should just be a mesmer thing. If we can balance it against maybe small nerfs to some clone death traits or a minor increase in F1 recharge times idk.. whatever.

If we then keep DE on the trait bar and change it around to have functionality that is beneficial to having a lot of clones up it could actually itself open up a bit more diversity.

What if, baring clones are always created on a dodge without traits, DE, caused targeting “auto lock” drops on a dodge.

I’m not talking about stealth, just a target drop for half a second where in the enemy must re-click / tab or hope that rng doesn’t have him or her re-target your clones.

I could easily see that opening up some options for less PU reliance to “tank” up damage or help get Decoy off your utility bar.

Might even help in PvE to kite mobs and bosses around.

weird.. no one’s done the most obvious one yet..

Superior Rune of End Game

(1) +1 Swing your sword “again”
(2) +10 Alts to redo the same content
(3) +2 LS Seasons
(4) -1 LS Season
(5) +1 to Noob Hope levels when hearing the phrase “It’s Comming Soon”
(6) Unfinished / Bugged Buff, we’re working on it! Will have more info “When it’s Ready”

i lol’d at the unwritten part.

“Player A asks for help on LS instance”

hilarious to me.

just to clarify for those confused, Margonites were just Humans that followed Abaddon.

they later became the demonic horrors after being cast into the realm of torment with their god..

That aside, I would love to see some more Non-Human Races added to Gw2.

Kinda tired of seeing 3 of the 5 wear the exact same armors in the exact same way..

Great places to go would be Primordials (the rulers of the elementals, imagination is the only limitation for ways to have these types of races look. floating rocks or ice etc..)

Or perhaps go with something fun and have something called the Mist Forged. Deity or maybe crystalline and fog like beings that come from a realm woven deep into the mists. eerily beautiful and yet still inside of that uncanny valley of creepy..

Or just for funzies, use the forgotten or some other elder race that survived the dragons, i wouldn’t mind those either…

as long as its not human and doesn’t share the bloody friggen armor patterns..

PS: I’m still irritated that i cannot tell a Sylvari from a Norn at a glance, i have to stop and zoom in on it.

been that way for months now.

started with the minis being added to the account wardrobe…

i guess it does fall into the “why is 10$ the minimum” level of conversation but we’ve also seen a minor inflation to gem shop items.

From Transmutation stones to Charged – same amount of charges for more gems even when on sale.

Infinite gathering tools – upped in price due to “account bound” Old model no longer available for less gems..

Admmitedly some of this is Anet and NCsoft attempting to see just how much they can get people to pay to get a thing, and maybe we do just need lower barriers on gems from the cash stand point.

I guess i’m just tired of looking at the gem shop and trying to decide if i want to spend 20$ for the 900 Gem item, or start selling kitten from my bank (its almost always this)

Gem sales would be lovely but 5$ for 400 would be ok too i guess.

What many of you may not understand is that in the Past, Mesmers got a handful of buffs and a lot of rather unfitting Nerfs (with 0 compensation).

Generally when our class has been handed a buff, its always been followed by a very swift and overdone nerf to something else.

Thats why, when the devs, tell us they’re going to buff something in a way we never asked for, our gut reaction is to say “Thank you, But we don’t want the echo of Nerfs next hotfix or patch. Can you just do X to Y or maybe just fix the bug on Z instead?”

Uncalled for Buffs on any class almost always means that it’s of 2 catagories.

1. It’s pointless and touches none of the core issues on a weapon or class and will continue to remain suboptimal and under used.

2. It’s overkill and causes issues, will be nerfed later or cause nerfs to hit other things that are valuable to multiple builds.

Dear Anet,

Why is it that you will put down Sales on the Gw2 game so often, and put in semi-sales on in-game gem shop items….

Yet you never actually put a sale on Gems themselves?

Many other FtP and Semi-FtP game models will often put their in-game currencies on sales in one for or another (30% off or 50% off or Buy and get extra for “free”).

So why not in Gw2? Obviously these sales couldn’t / shouldn’t be for the Gold to Gems conversions but if you’re strapped for cash why not put all the items in the gem shop for a week and then put Gems on sale instead of the items?

Thank you,
A curious person.

Why does it take so much longer for sPvP to make turn-a-rounds based on player suggestions and data vs the PvE side of the game?

I would have thought changes like these would have been announced along side the WTS open and the more recent weekly tournaments for actual money.

I understand that all things take time but 2 years seems a bit too long.. If its an issue of not enough data inflow then maybe that should be a red flag in of itself.

So whats going on at Anet that held these changes from happening sooner and more frequently?

Fast casting was a beastly stat to have not just because it lowered some Mesmer spells casting times but rather the casting times of any spells from any other professions as well.

This ment Mesmers could crack off meteor shower faster than ele and heal faster than monks and so on so forth…

In a game filled with low cast times and no casting bars fast casting is just kinda prebuilt into every single profession and Mesmers get the kitten covered end of the stick because of it.

sorry just to correct the misinformation.

Shatter DPS – Bezerker is best.

Reflect DPS – Assassins is best (this is important in dungeons)

Sinister is next in line for a Hybrid type of build but with only exotic stats atm and no presence in sPvP… it’s also going to be heavily glass and gimic for a time…

…

and Fay said it well enough but just to echo it.

Celestial stats shine bright on classes that already excel at doing everything well and nothing Great, but hinder classes that have to specialize by granting useless points into trees that you cant or wont tap into consistently at any given time.

a Mesmer that tries to become a jack of all trades generally ends up dead , making a new build, or re-rolling…

Good try. Except the forgotten were and as far as anyone knows still are confined to the Crystal desert.

Maguuma is the home of the blood stone and the long gone druids.

The glory door is more.likely to do.with the two.magical ties Magumma that are already established

forever under represented..

where is all the Mesmer kitten?

Lets to a thought process for the Average consumer of something.

In this case lets say its Gw2.

You as a person decide to pay for Gw2.

You are now a part of a category between those who do and do not own Gw2.

You have just added to the Gw2 revenue for the year.

No you, as an average casual player, log in and play about lets say…

3 hours a week.

Time passes and you will fall into another category depending on your level of investment.

Someone who sets aside a specific amount of time to Play or someone who will play when they feel up to it and have some time.

If you fall into the first category you are MORE LIKELY to spend money beyond the original purchase as you are showing Investment into the game.

If its the second, you are LESS LIKELY to spend money beyond original purchase, you show little to no investment and are unlikely to care about extra trinkets or “keeping up” with other players.

Yes there are deviations from this when you find the hardcore players that get off on earning everything by only grinding. But for every one of these there is many more adult players more inclined to spend a small amount of money to reap the same rewards. Those players may have less time and play casually but the majority of them Will fall into the Hardcore or Core sub category of players.

This is basic economics and business…

Just because you personally may not fall into these or even notice others that do, doesn’t mean its not the wide spread norm.

Not every hardcore gamer is a 15 year old with no income, and many older gamers that are invested in a game are more inclined to spend a little extra money to skip through things they deem less worthy of their time. Time they would rather spend with rewards or with their family after dinner.

Casual Ted, the 45 year old that barely plays probably isn’t spending his extra money on a game he barely plays to keep up with all the hardcore players..

It is almost ALWAYS the HARDCORE players that PAY the bills for the developers. they are the TARGET audience and as prideful as they want to seem…

Candy Crush makes over 70% of its cash off of less than 7% of its players. I seriously doubt those 7% are just casually playing the game for less than 15 minutes a week..

Farmville is exactly the same.

It may not be you. but its your Group, the hardcore and the Veteran, that complains the loudest while throwing the most cash all at the same time.

well there’s always the classic 6/6/ whatever PvE Mantra Build. But thats just for raw damage numbers.

If i had to create a build tho…

gimme a moment.

(20 minutes later)

Needs some TLC but theres potential behind a x/6/6/x/x build with PU and TD Distortion on phantasms helps them stay alive in high aoe areas long enough to get a shot off.

running it as a condition build seemed to get the best results but i’m pretty rusty at it..

GrandmaFunk.3052:

Swish.2463:

you forgot E and E is the most important to any company

E) They are the largest source of additional Spending. That means spending extra Money on the Product or future Products.

What do you base that on? Do you have any sources to back up that assertion?

because I strongly doubt there’s any truth to it.

sorry for the terribly late reply but heres what 5 minutes on Google found for me.

http://freetoplay.biz/2007/08/02/top-10-revenue-models-for-free-to-play-games/

Look at the numbers in each player base for the Cash influx.

I could look longer and find much more, theres been dozens if not hundreds of reports to support the claim that it is a small sub section of players (aka the core or “hardcore” audience) that actually generate revenue for Developers or studios or companies in general.

The average casual user is most likely not going to become or start out “investing” into a produce beyond an initial purchase.

If you don’t cater in some measure to your tiny audience that is actually invested then you end up with a lot of unhappy people and a small trickle of cash to plug holes in a sinking ship.

jweez.7214:

Has anet ever explicitly stated they care to put out more content for more dedicated players? Serious question here, I am all for it but the more I play gw2 the more I feel that the Devs have come to the conclusion that;

A) They are the smallest demographic of players
B) They demand the most and hardest to please
C) They are the quickest to complain and stir the controversy pot
D) They burn through content the fastest

All of these kinda spell out a why bother situation to me.

Just asking and I wish anet would say something of their intentions because if they don’t care to make content for dedicated players so that these players can move on and find something to satisfy them.

you forgot E and E is the most important to any company

E) They are the largest source of additional Spending. That means spending extra Money on the Product or future Products.

This is why More successful companies cater to the core audience rather than pan handle to those less likely to pick up or stay or even show interest. When you give your dedicated audience what they want or ask for, and you do a GOOD JOB (this is key and super important) They will ENJOY IT and support you.

When you ignore them, they get angry they leave and warn other potential customers of poor support and service. They don’t spend money on you anymore, they question your every move and eventually end up not even giving suggestions. they just berate you.

If you don’t support your Core audience above any other they will lose trust in you and your product and given enough kitten ups and let downs… finding a new audience is the ONLY thing you will be able to do as trust is valuable and nearly impossible to restore once its lost.

As poor of a measure as the Forums can be, a well versed MMO’er or Gamer and Forum goer will notice a difference between the “elite” that will always find a fault and throw negativity at the devs and a community that is angry as a majority.

If the Community aka the “less elite” or “casual” is showing distress about the way you are doing something, its a sign that you are doing something very very wrong..

The Hardcore player is not the entire make up of the audience that needs to be catered too… its the CORE audience as a whole..

The dedicated player.

and if all the dedicated players are taking the time to ask “why” or “complain” or stir the kitten pot, Its a bad sign for a game and the relationship between the developers and the players.

Its a sign of a lack of trust.

Now, Go look around all the forums again and try to judge just how much trust there is between the dedicated Player and the Dev’s.

Be sure to grandfather in complaints and issues brought up forgotten and left unfixed from 2 years ago along with many past dedicated players that abandoned ship.

actually heres the full break down after a fast test just to be sure…. Also i said “count as a leap” not iLeap.. i was referring to Swap.

Phase retreat – working as always / must start inside of a combo field to apply leap finisher.

iLeap – Use never procs leap finisher – Clone procs leap finisher if it spawns inside of a combo field.

Swap – User Must start inside of a field to proc leap finisher effect, ending point does not need a field. If clone is inside of the/a field when swap is used it will not gain the leap finisher effect. If the clone ends in a field it still will not proc the leap finisher.

tldr;

iLeap only effects clones (leap finishers) : Must be summoned inside of Combo Field.

Swap and Phase Retreat only effects the Player (leap finishers) : Must start inside of Combo field

These two skills count as a leap only at the first action. Aka the beginning of the skill. It’s always been this way however swap is a bit more picky now about what and where fields need to be

any mesmer build will always use phantasms in some way. They hit like trucks bro….

..

most of them anyway..

Shatter play style is to summon and let it do its thing while you position more clones and yourself for a large burst.

Its a quick hitting thing that deals a massive amount of damage over a very short period of time. In fast skirmishing fights that you hope/want to be over asap. It does lack sustain as its very easy to burn out every burst it has very quickly. Phantasm builds will lose out to Shatter every time when it comes down to efficiency in team based combat where killing other players quickly is key.

This is because Phantasm builds (they often actually avoid all F skills unless needed) need to slowly ramp up and place phantasms very carefully. once all three are up tho they will deal more sustained DPS than a shatter build can. In longer battles (most notably anything PvE related) A phantasm build will catch up to and then quickly pkittenter Mesmer for overall damage in a fight. They’re pretty decent in a 1v1 situation where ending a fight quickly may not be as important and you just need to wear someone down or annoy them till help arrives from one side or the other.

Is it possible to go 50/50? well kind of.. but they’re differing playstles and shattering 3 phantasms typically means a period of dead time that you wont be contributing to a fight until you can ramp back up. Shatter’s biggest asset is the huge bursts to end fights quickly so leaving phantasms up for too long ends up hurting more in the long run for them..

It’s usually just best to pick one or the other.

I would vote phantasm for PvE and maybe WvW depending on what you like to do there.

Shatter shines in sPvP and does pretty well in “overworld” basic PvE stuff as well tho i would not recommend it for dungeons.

I used to use swap plus warlock to let those 6k bolts hit home. I don’t use sword much anymore tho…

my other favorite was mirror images and then shatter point blank on stomps while I rubbed the ground near someone.

To point it out.

Mesmers often don’t slot signets because they are so situational and often weak.

If you want my suggestion read my posts

All your brilliant builds can be achieved right now as all of the numbers you list off do not cap out the already available trait points. Where are you putting the extra that’s so game changing?

If your going to fly into a rage at least do your homework and math correctly…

I would also point out that raging and shooting down any other arguments made by anyone else by just blindly stating that you are right because you are right isn’t conducive to further discussion and a huge turn off for further replies and possible better.ideas.

Check your attitude if you aim to be taken seriously and actually add to these type of threads and be willing to look at others options objectively.

That’s the last reply and acknowledgement you’ll be receiving from me tho, the bridge.is burnt.

I lol`d

7/10 would read again.

But seriously why make this topic unless your just attempting to bait out and isolate people who no longer play but still have opinions..

I would put it this way as the skills get old fast on all classes..

Ele has a steep learning curve but a wide variety of things it can do. Cheapest to gear up for weapons.

Guardians are solid but don’t play them if you ever want to go ranged and feel powerful. All their good stuff is melee.

Thief only play if you enjoy smashing keys and learning very strict rotations on skills as the lack of defenses leaves almost no room for error. Very limited as to viability in pve and PvP.. only a few weapons and builds worth picking up.

Easiest skills to balance and make. No new animations required.

Cheapest way to feign an intent to expand upon utility skills and string players along that will hope for bigger and better down the road without ever having to deliver further..

What other traits in the master line are worth taking in builds? Dd is for pistol users, how many builds take pistol?

There’s a signet trait in there that’s laughable

Mantra defensive buff.. nah.. Mantra builds don’t need de anyway

As for an extra left over point.. No.. why use that to pick up a second minor when none of our secondary minors are worth picking up without investing fully into a line…

I get the feeling you’re very new to mesmer

No doubt it would require some rebalancing but what other traits in the gm slots would couple well with ip?

skcamow.3527:

DE will likely never become the default class mechanic. The outcry would be such that even if Anet went with it, it would get reverted.

I doubt we’d see any outcry at all. Nearly every single Mesmer build runs DE now. How many would notice that all Mesmers went from using a trait to just having it default without a proper Announcement in the patch notes?

The meta is already built up around Mesmer using this trait, and the change probably wouldn’t alter how its handled..

If it were just made defualt I might actually want to take something like DD for the first time in a year and a half..

this argument is ultimately why Anets choice to remove Hex’s and Gw1 styled conditions and cast bars, and replace them with clones and phantasms as a classes core mechanic was such a terrible move.

good on paper unless you read it..

This is why more often than not when you argue about DE you end up with the same three answers.

A. Well just move it lower or to a new line, they’ll open up builds (it wont, people will still go 4/4/0/0/6 or 4/2/0/2/6 or whatever)

B. Just make more clone Traits! Cool idea, how are you going to balance that if people take multiples of these type of traits? they cant all be GM traits. Would it be acceptable if you were able to generate 4 clones from mirror images there Pyro? and then 2 per dodge?

C. Mesmer class just needs a redo. either get rid of the clones gimmick or change how shatters work or buff my clones and phantasms or nerf clones and phantasms and make my mesmers the beast… blah blah..

This answer pretty much always ends up requiring Anet to go back to the drawing board, and then getting back to us about it “soon”.

Hence why i Think there is 0 use in making suggestions about certain traits and build diversity anymore. We got painted into a Corner on a few things and without totally kittening up Anet’s pretty paint job, there is absolutely no way to get out of it.

Anet doesn’t enjoy repainting things (excluding gem shop armor and weapons)

I’m amazed any of you bothered to write on this topic with earnest answers..

This is clearly an ill-informed and grumpy child.

Or its a painfully obvious troll.

To save face for the Mesmer community as a whole, in the future I would suggest you all just skip over these type of topics and put attention and energy elsewhere.